The Brother K Melee

If it's fashionable to say that rocknroll's dead, THE BROTHER K MELEE is in the unfashionable business of resurrection. Or maybe it's more of a Frankensteinian reanimation of stitched-up body parts. Point is, it's alive.

Originally titled Brother K, the Brooklyn-based band was founded in 2011 by guitarist/songwriter/English PhD candidate Lucas Kwong. Dissatisfied with the volume of his solo folk efforts (not loud enough), Kwong decided to meld his the garage rock revivalism of his adolescence with his childhood devotion to Fifties rock 'n' roll.

The project began life as a primal blues/rockabilly two-piece with David Cornejo on drums, before evolving to embrace punk, psychedelia, and Beatlesque grandiloquence. On the 2016 compilation SEEK ASSEMBLY, the group vies to corral its unruly influences - Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Nirvana, The Stooges, The White Stripes, Hamburg-era The Beatles, garage-gospel acts like The Caravans - into a sound reflective of its new name: tight as a brotherly embrace, savage as an unquiet riot.

In 2017, the band released the singles “Florid-A” and “Stranger From The Country,” and welcomed guitarist Adel Bagli and bassist Sam Shaw. At any given show, you'll find them delivering unmedicated anthems for dead saints, analog queens, and slowboats to Bethlehem. Hooks, howls, heartache: vive la MELEE.